This invention relates in general to a portable input magazine for a device for automatically sorting and testing thin paper sheets such as paper money, bills or bank notes, and, more particularly, to a new and useful apparatus and method for separating a strap from a packet having a stack of thin sheets, such as bank notes, bound by the strap.
Pieces of paper money have only a limited life. After a certain period of time, paper currency must be withdrawn from circulation, destroyed and replaced by new bills. Previously, such operations have been performed manually. Such work can be done only by reliable individuals, is highly expensive in labor costs and also tiresome, so that errors due to inadvertence can never be fully eliminated.
Therefore, it is desirable to automate the respective operations. Published patent application (DT-OS) German OS No. 2,446,280, corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,420 discloses a bill sorting device which permits the automatic testing of large quantities of bill for fitness for circulation. To carry out this sorting operation, the bills, which are initially available in strapped packs, are manually unstrapped and placed in quantities of 1,000 pieces in a respective magazine. Both the top and the bottom of a single unstrapped pack are in the magazine by special sorting cards. Then, the bills are removed from the magazine by means of a special withdrawal mechanism and transferred to a belt conveyor to be transported past certain testing apparatus or to a sorting device.
The magazines are filled at a location which is remote from the bill sorting device. At that location, first, the strapped packs of bills must be unstrapped, separating sorting cards must be inserted into the stack of bills, and the stack must be placed in the magazine. Thereupon, the magazine must be transported to the bill sorting device and positioned so as to enable the withdrawing mechanism wo withdraw the bills individually from the magazine.
Handling of bills requires particular security measures. With the prior art magazine, access from the outside to the contents of the magazine is possible, both during the phase of filling after unstrapping the packs and later during the transportation and segregation of the bills. Increased security expenditures are therefore necessary to avoid irregularities.